“Things with Beards” by Sam J. Miller–a short story bursting at the seams / “Things with Beards” de Sam J. Miller – un cuento lleno a reventar

Note: This is the second review of a short story nominated for the 2017 Nebula Awards. You can see all the nominees here, and my earlier review of “This is Not a Wardrobe Door” by A. Merc Rustad here.

Sam J. Miller (and friend?)

So here’s the short version of “Things with Beards” by Sam J. Miller: Protagonist Jimmy (Jim?) McReady has returned to New York in the summer of 1983 after a mysterious end to his work at a research station in Antarctica. He meets an old friend who’s involved with an underground group bent on payback for the cops harassing and abusing blacks. McReady is gay and white, and he identifies with his friend’s political agenda despite his Irish family, some of whom are cops. During the course of the story McReady discovers that he and his friend Hugh are infected with what is called at that time — the “gay cancer”. He also intuits that he is inhabited by a monster of some sort that claims great stretches of his memory and also attacks and inhabits practically everyone with whom McReady comes into close contact.

No, this is not a novel. It’s a freaking short story.

Miller’s stories, like this one and this one, too, are just packed full of issues. Where I often worry about my stories floating out of my grasp and out to sea if I don’t have a streamlined plot, Miller just goes for it. He stuffs multiple messy aspects of his main character’s life into whatever tale he’s telling, and it works.

As for the story world, even if you have your doubts about Antarctica or McReady’s brief foray into a remote part of upstate New York, the early 80s New York City in “Beards” is gritty and a bit forlorn. At the same time, it’s electric with the promise of change, which resonates with what I remember about that time. The angst of people fighting for social justice, in a pre-social media world where it seems they are vastly outnumbered, also feels true, and I wonder if Miller thinks about New York in the 80s as more of a feeling than a time and place.

With a strange emotive mix of rawness and grace, Miller focuses on the issue of AIDS from the perspective of characters who are living and dying with it. It’s not that he ignores the historical and political aspects of it–in fact, political and social movements often appear in his stories. He chooses, however, to honor the courage of the characters. Any regular reader of Miller knows that he often focuses on the passions and fears of young gay characters like McReady, but this protagonist is so fractured and acutely vulnerable it makes me feel like this is new terrain. A reader has no choice but to identify with McReady in this hostile world, and when was the last time a writer made you want to protect a white guy who wears a cowboy hat.

The story is about disguises of course, just as the title hints, and McReady is wearing a bunch of them. I initially thought that the story would be about peeling off those disguises as the protagonist finds the courage to live with himself in some nice, enlightened space, but no. Miller seems determined not to let McReady or the reader off that easy. Monsters gotta do their things after all. The ending is complicated and demands the reader think about choices, lack of choice and, above all, the necessity of making enough peace with your monsters so that you can go on–at least for a while.

Thumbs up and 4.9 stars of 5.

PS: When Kate Baker narrated the story at Clarkesworld, she pronounced the main character’s name with a long e, but I thought it was McReady as in ready for anything, which fits the protagonist’s predisposition, don’t you think?